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Socialism in America Today

In the last article we did a brief overview of socialism. If you have not read it you can click here. We are now going to continue our commentary on this topic. Unfortunately, there exists in our society today the untold story of socialism. Millions have died because of this philosophy. While many of the liberals on the left seem to cling to this economic model, they seem to be unfamiliar with the empty promises and destruction that lie in its path. Socialism has always failed everywhere it was tried. Not only is history filled with examples, but there are some modern-day examples we can look at too. However, we will get to that in the next post.

In this post we will talk about the many ways socialism has attached itself to the Democratic Party. Socialism has been there for a while, but now they are not even trying to hide it anymore. It is out in the open for all to see. As the party moves more to the left they seem to have abandoned all the moderate Democrats. This is no longer the party of Jefferson, and it does not even hold the values of John Kennedy anymore. He once said “ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country”, while socialism promises free college, free health care, and many other free things from the government that are brought about through a redistribution of profit and control of industries. The problem seems to be that socialism has been misrepresented by those on the left. The promise of free stuff in a redistribution of wealth never works out as planned. Those who line up to get their free government-run services always become slaves to the system.

Capitalism is not a perfect model either, and there are problems with it. We will cover that in much more detail in an upcoming post. While capitalism creates a middle class and a better life for some, there are some people who remain poor while other people become wealthy. Socialism destroys the middle class and transfers all wealth to the state. Greed is therefore found on every level of government. Absolute control and freedom is handed over to any government instituting socialism over time. This is one reason why Vladimir Lenin famously said “The goal of socialism is communism.”

Socialism begins by creating class envy. Karl Marx called it the struggle of classes. Key phrases in the Democratic platform like “tax breaks for the rich”, references to the “one percent”, and raising taxes on the wealthy are designed to create the envy needed to insert heavy taxation. This taxation has never stopped with the so-called one percent. It has always filtered down to small businesses and the middle class. When jobs are cut as a result of this heavy tax burden, the Democrats attempt to make a dependent class that will keep them in power. There are some elements of taxation that is not socialism. That is because taxation to provide public civic services such as roads, water treatment, and so on is not Marxian Socialism, especially if it is done by the state and local governments. As we have already pointed out, there is a difference between providing civic services and controlling the wealth and production of industries. We can already see the struggle of classes and the attempt by Democrats to redistribute some of the wealth of industry in order to create a more socialist society through creating heavy tax burdens. More on that later.

Bernie Sanders

Let’s look at socialism in the Democratic Party today. Bernie Sanders is probably the most famous socialist in the party today, and everyone knows him from his presidential run against Hillary Clinton. The evidence that he is a socialist is found in part by examining his policies. Sanders also makes the claim that he is a socialist. See video below.

Later on in life Sanders re-brands himself as a “Democratic Socialist”, and he sites FDR. Today, Bernie Sanders at times calls himself a socialist, and sometimes he calls himself a “democratic socialist”. He believes there is no difference in the meaning. His real inspiration comes from a guy called Eugene Debs

Despite Sanders’ supporters’ enthusiasm for socialism and/or communism, they do not really know what those terms mean. Communism and socialism have never been successful at creating a Socialist Workers Paradise. This is one of the main promises in the sales pitch. The Communist Manifesto was not about fighting Big Business. It was pitting the workers which were called the “proletariat” against the middle class which were called the “bourgeois”. This is why socialism always pulls the middle class down. This is the classic textbook struggle of social classes. This is Marxian Socialism, and it is based on the writings of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels. Bernie Sanders is echoing some of the same concepts, but they are slightly re-branded. However, socialism recorded in history does not line up with what many of these Bernie Sanders supporters say about socialism.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is another socialist. She was among a group of nationwide Social Justice Democrats that had their candidacies announced and live-streamed on May 16, 2017. Ocasio-Cortez was the first person since 2004 to challenge the incumbent Democratic Caucus Chair, Joe Crowley. He represented the 7th district from 1999 to 2013. He became Chair of the House Democratic Caucus in 2017. He also has been Chair of the Queens County Democratic Party since 2006. He was a well established democrat. According to the media, Ocasio-Cortez discovered she had also won a primary in her neighboring district after being spontaneously entered as a write-in candidate by voters in the competition to pick a candidate for the obscure Reform Party. She is a rising star in the media and from within her party.

Ocasio-Cortez belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America. And she has the backing of Bernie Sanders’ “Our Revolution” political group.

She also has a degree in economics, but she really does not know what she is talking about.

Andrew Gillum

Andrew Gillum is running for governor in Florida. He has the backing of George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and Tom Steyer. Gillum has been serving as Mayor of Tallahassee, Florida since 2014. Gillum has been classified as a progressive, and is considered to be a politician in the mold of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders who is the highest-ranking elected official to support his primary candidacy. Even though he brands himself as progressive many policies are based on socialism.

Gillum has also served as lead commissioner for the Long Range Community Based Target Issue Committee. In 2005, Gillum was one of the commissioners who voted to give themselves a new retirement benefit through deferred compensation. The policy was later repealed by the commission after public outrage.

Yet Many Democrats still deny that their party is becoming more socialist in spite of the evidence placed before them. This move to the left has made many moderate democrats disillusioned by the direction of their party.

Control of Industry

As we discussed in the last post, capitalism says that companies get to control the profit of industries. They get to choose where to invest and what products to develop. Socialism says that government controls the wealth and production of industry. One of the first industries taken over by socialists is typically the healthcare industry. Socialists seek to make a government controlled monopoly out of health care. This accounts for about 17.9 percent of the GDP in America today. This socialist healthcare system is known as a “single payer” system. Under this system government is the one who pays for health care – usually through heavy taxation. Strict laws are in place. Socialists in America today like to brag about the efficiency of Canada’s single payer system, but they leave out many of the problems associated with this system. (See video below.)

Canada has the worst wait times of any nation, and yet their healthcare has been presented by liberals to be one of the best in the world.

Most of these democrats make the dubious claim that our healthcare system is a failure of capitalism. They seem to pretend that The Affordable Care Act never existed, and everything is the fault of capitalism. How did our healthcare system get this screwed up to begin with? While healthcare was an issue that needed to be addressed before Obama Care, government intervention screwed everything up and made it much worse. Before Obama Care my family premiums where about $350.00 a month. My deductible was about $500.00 and my family deductible was $750.00. Immediately after Obama Care passed my premiums skyrocketed to well over $600.00 a month and my personal deductible went up to $4,000.00, while my family deductible went up to over $8,000.00. I lost my doctor because he was no longer a part of the insurance plan. I have not seen a doctor in years. Eventually, I had to change plans and the cost is outrageous. Today my personal deduction is $4,300.00. Prescription drugs also sharply increased due to backroom deals Obama made with pharmaceutical companies. America now pays more for prescriptions than any other country in the world. The healthcare in America is not overpriced due to a free market as Democrats would have you believe. The healthcare system is screwed up directly due to government intervention.

This could be fixed without a single payer system. This is not the fault of capitalism. This is the fault of government meddling in the free market. This is corporatism at its finest. When I say “corporatism” I am referring to economic tripartism which involves negotiations between business, labor, and state interest groups to establish economic policy. This is sometimes also referred to as neo-corporatism, and is associated with social democracy.

The real truth is Obama has always wanted a single payer socialist system. Yet when The Affordable Care Act was first rolled out it was not a single payer system. He knew he could not get a single payer system passed into law. (See video below.)

It is my personal belief that Obama made a system designed to fail so the Democrats could eventually move to a single payer system. Obama made backroom deals with private companies to drive up the cost on things like prescription drugs and health care premiums. This would be with the understanding that his successor (Hillary Clinton) would be hailed as the savior of health care. She would come into office and move the nation to a single payer system, and democrats would control 17.9 percent of the GDP! That has been their plan all along.

The only problem is, Hillary lost and Donald Trump won. That ruined their plans. Now it’s time for plan B. Now Bernie Sanders is advocating for a single payer system while the government still has the old Obama Care law in place. This keeps the cost of healthcare extremely high. Healthcare reform is desperately needed, and the Democrats are trying to push the country into a socialist system. There is no market in the healthcare industry that is totally free today. It is drastically controlled by government regulation. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are making record profits thanks to the deals Obama made with them. Bernie’s plan is called “Medicare for All”. This is strong evidence that socialism has attached itself to the Democratic Party.

The Communist Manifesto

In 1847, a group of radical workers known as the “Communist League” met in London. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels recently became members. They commissioned Marx and Engels to write a manifesto on their behalf. This became known as the Communist Manifesto. Marx was the main author, while Engels provided editing and assistance. The Communist Manifesto was originally published in London in 1848. Of all the documents of modern socialism, it is the most widely read and the most influential document. It is the systematic statement of the philosophy that is known as Marxism. It outlines what socialism really is. It calls for a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large.

Marx and Engels were not satisfied with theorizing about revolution in the abstract. They thought their theory was only useful to promote social change. By clarifying the proper means and ends of revolution they were not only acting as authors, they were also activists. The promise of a socialist workers paradise drove many to support socialism. Many of the policies outlined in the Communist Manifesto are attached to a variety of democratic platforms in America today. Let’s just look at a few. What was the Communist Manifesto’s stated agenda and plan to bring about the Socialist Workers’ Paradise?

1. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. This is why democrats support steeply rising tax rates.

2. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. This is why Democrats are always fighting to preserve the Estate Tax’s confiscatory rate on substantial estates. Even estate tax on small farms has caused many families to lose their land.

3. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

4. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

5. Free education for all children in public schools. Combining education with industrial production, this explains the staunch opposition to School Choice that comes from the Democratic party.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. Here we see the real reason for “net neutrality”.

This is just a partial list containing a few socialist policies which have become part of the democratic platform.

The Democrats remain largely invested in re-branding socialism. They have renamed it “Democratic Socialism”. I plan to write about it in more detail in an upcoming post. But for now the video below explains it pretty well.